Guide to Thesis Paper Structure: Basic Formatting
Are you looking for some help in writing thesis? Then you are exactly at the
right place. Students often get afraid of writing thesis because it is
length, time consuming and require effort of researching and reading
articles. If you have spent months of studying and experimentation, then do
you stop yourself at the writing part? It isn’t that hard all you need
to is sit on table, grab your laptop and starting writing it with the
guidelines provided by this article.
Every university or department have their own set of rules for thesis
structure, word count and pages. Do check your requirement and narrow down
your ideas before starting the write up. The most important tip is to make
separate folder of each section so that you can easily edit and manageable
for you. Normally, the structure of thesis has following points:
1. Abstract
It is the first part of your thesis that summarizes your whole research,
methods, findings, and conclusion in one paragraph. It is overview of study
and non-specialized person usually bother to read is to understand the value
of this research. So, write it properly, precise and each line display a
piece of information.
2. Introduction
The second chapter is of introduction which gives an idea of what and why
this study is conducted. It consists of points that are:
- Describing the topic knowledge
- Questions and answers related to it.
- Highlighting the significance of the topic.
- Hypothesis and objective of conducting the study.
By discussing all the above-mentioned points, you will be able to draw
conclusions of previous work and understand the research goal. You need to
establish a link between introduction and literature review.
3. Literature review
Here comes the difficult part of thesis in which you need to do extensive
literature study and state the gap of your topic. The purpose of literature
review is to show previous and current research and methodology of the
study. Add arguments of the topic and why problems exist this field of
research. Make sure you organize your points in proper manner.
4. Methods section
This chapter gives answer of “how” the study is conducted by
using any tool or software. It describes the type of data, materials require
to study it, parameters and other small details need to be mentioned in this
section. Make sure you write a good methodology that can be replicated to
produce similar results. Also describe each step-in detail with credibility
by mentioning hurdles in conducting the study.
5. Results
This section outlines the interpretation of your outcomes and your findings
whether it was close to predicated one or not. The analysis part
doesn’t come here in detail instead you need to graphically present
your results in form of figure, charts or graph that can be easy to
understand. Stick to your objective and report all the findings that is good
or bad for the study. Using a single format will gives reader an easy way to
evaluate your data.
6. Discussion
This chapter consist of detail analysis of your findings and their
explanation whether they are significant or not. This is the time where you
can test your hypothesis whether it is true or false. Write down any
limitations of your study, give explanation of observing unpredicted results
and questions that are still need to be answered in future.
7. Conclusion
In the last chapter, you need to highlight the findings of the study and to
prove whether the objective of your study has been achieved or not. Point
our limitations and also gives future recommendation of your topic that can
be research in other perspective. Better to wind up your thesis nicely by
discussing what your research goal is and your findings.
There is also another chapter which is of references, but it is quite
straightforward as it is list of citation you used in your thesis. Most of
the recommended style is APA but better to check requirements of your
department. The important things to remember is that the language of your
thesis should be clear, understandable and to the point. Your writing should
be in flow that a reader will read it to the end.